Anaplastic Lymphoma Kinase Receptor: Possible Involvement in Anorexia Nervosa

The pathophysiology of Anorexia Nervosa (AN) has not been fully elucidated. Anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) receptor is a protein-tyrosine kinase mainly known as a key oncogenic driver. Recently, a genetic deletion of ALK in mice has been found to increase energy expenditure and confers resistance to obesity in these animals, suggesting its role in the regulation of thinness. Here, we investigated the expression of ALK and the downstream intracellular pathways in female rats subjected to the activity-based anorexia (ABA) model, which reproduces important features of human AN. In the hypothalamic lysates of ABA rats, we found a reduction in ALK receptor expression, a downregulation of Akt phosphorylation, and no change in the extracellular signal-regulated protein kinases 1 and 2 (ERK1/2) phosphorylation. After the recovery from body weight loss, ALK receptor expression returned to the control baseline values, while it was again suppressed during a second cycle of ABA induction. Overall, this evidence suggests a possible involvement of the ALK receptor in the pathophysiology of AN, that may be implicated in its stabilization, resistance, and/or its exacerbation

Bullous lesions at polyethylene glycol interferon-alpha-2a inoculation site in a hepatitis C virus-infected subject.

Sir, The recent introduction of polyethylene glycol interferon (PEG-IFN) for treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV) has led to reports of both widespread and localized dermatological manifestations as side-effects. Widespread manifestations comprise hair loss, pruritus, generalized eczema, hyperpigmentation tongue, vitiligo and cutaneous sarcoidosis (1–4). Localized manifestations include cutaneous ulcerations and cutaneous local necrosis at the inoculation site, with both non-pegylated IFN (5) and PEG-IFN-α-2b (6, 7). We report here a case of bullous lesion at the inoculation site of PEG-IFN-α-2a in a patient with chronic HCV-correlated hepatopathy

Global brain asymmetry is increased in schizophrenia and related to avolition

Objective: Schizophrenia may be the result of a failure of the normal lateralization process of the brain. However, whole-brain asymmetry has not been assessed up to date. Here we propose a novel measure of global brain asymmetry based on the Dice coefficient in order to quantify similarity between brain hemispheres. Method: Global gray and white matter asymmetry was calculated from high-resolution T1 structural images acquired from 24 patients with schizophrenia and 26 healthy controls, age- and sex-matched. Some of the analyses were replicated in a much larger sample (n = 759) obtained from open-access online databases. Results: Patients with schizophrenia had more global gray matter asymmetry than controls. Additionally, increased gray matter asymmetry was associated with avolition, whereas the inverse relationship was found for anxiety. These analyses were replicated in a larger sample and confirmed previous results. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that global gray matter asymmetry is related to the concept of developmental stability and is a useful indicator of perturbations during neurodevelopment

The Extreme Energy Events HECR array: status and perspectives

The Extreme Energy Events Project is a synchronous sparse array of 52 tracking detectors for studying High Energy Cosmic Rays (HECR) and Cosmic Rays-related phenomena. The observatory is also meant to address Long Distance Correlation (LDC) phenomena: the network is deployed over a broad area covering 10 degrees in latitude and 11 in longitude. An overview of a set of preliminary results is given, extending from the study of local muon flux dependance on solar activity to the investigation of the upward-going component of muon flux traversing the EEE stations; from the search for anisotropies at the sub-TeV scale to the hints for observations of km-scale Extensive Air Shower (EAS).Comment: XXV ECRS 2016 Proceedings - eConf C16-09-04.

Measurement of the front-end dead-time of the LHCb muon detector and evaluation of its contribution to the muon detection inefficiency

A method is described which allows to deduce the dead-time of the front-end electronics of the LHCb muon detector from a series of measurements performed at different luminosities at a bunch-crossing rate of 20 MHz. The measured values of the dead-time range from 70 ns to 100 ns. These results allow to estimate the performance of the muon detector at the future bunch-crossing rate of 40 MHz and at higher luminosity